APHG Reader Suggestions

I've had a wonderful week in Cincinnati at the APHG reading. Teachers love to share ideas and resources when we gather together and we've compiled 4 pages of links, books, websites and other resources that APHG readers have suggested for classroom use. Here is a 4-page compilation of APHG reader-suggested resources. Additionally, here is the final newsletter (earlier editions of the newsletter archived here). I'll miss the friendliness and professional expertise of this fantastic network of geography educators. See you next year!

"In the 2016 edition of its World Development Indicators, the World Bank has made a big choice: It’s no longer distinguishing between 'developed' countries and “developing” ones in the presentation of its data. The change marks an evolution in thinking about the geographic distribution of poverty and prosperity. But it sounds less radical when you consider that nobody has ever agreed on a definition for these terms in the first place. The International Monetary Fund says its own distinction between advanced and emerging market economies “is not based on strict criteria, economic or otherwise.” The United Nations doesn’t have an official definition of a developing country, despite slapping the label on 159 nations. And the World Bank itself had previously simply lumped countries in the bottom two-thirds of gross national income (GNI) into the category, but even that comparatively strict cut-off wasn’t very useful."

Seth Dixon's insight:

Labels and categories are so often problematic, but they are also necessary to make sense of the vast amount of information. Regional geography is inherently about lumping places together that have commonalities, but acknowledging that many differences from place to place makes the world infinitely varied and complex. Since we can’t process an infinite amount of complexity, we categorize, for better or for worse. In education, we are continually trying to show how some categorizations fail, hoping that our students will categorize the information they receive in better ways (non-racist ways for example). The regional terms we use--Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, etc.—impacts how we think about the world. Each of those terms highlights a few similarities and ignores some important differences. The terms More Developed Countries (MDCs), Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs), and Less Developed (LDCs) is how many people have socioeconomically categorized the world’s countries, some preferring developing countries instead of LDCs because it less stigmatizing. In 2015, many at the World Bank have thought that the term “Developing Countries” obscures more than it reveals. In 2016, the World Bank removed the term from its database since there are more differences than similarities in the economic structures and trajectories of developing countries.

Questions to Ponder: What are some of the major problems that you see with the term developing country? Even with its problems, what utility is there in the term? Will you keep using the term or will you abandon it? How come?

There are 7,000 languages spoken on Earth. What are the costs — and benefits — of our modern-day Tower of Babel?

Seth Dixon's insight:

These two podcasts are great mainstream looks at issues that filled with cultural geography content. So many languages on Earth is clearly inefficient (the EU spends $1 billion per year on translation), and yet, linguistic diversity is such a rich part of humanity's cultural heritage. Listen to the first episode, Why Don't We All Speak the Same Language? as well as the follow-up episode, What Would Be the Best Universal Language?

Tim Frazier is not only a fantastic geographer with an expertise in disaster management, he was also my volleyball partner on the "Bad Latitudes" team at Penn State. Good job Tim; great geographic insight and context to understand the response efforts.

"The 1968 Olympics took place in Mexico City, Mexico. It was the first Games ever hosted in a Latin American country. And for Mexico City, the event was an opportunity to show the world that they were a metropolis as worthy as London, Berlin, Rome or Tokyo to host this huge international affair. The 1968 Olympics were decreed 'the Games of Peace.' So Wyman designed a little outline of a dove, which shop owners all over the city had been given to stick in their windows. A protest movement, led by students, was growing in the city around [the organizers and designers]. These protestors believed the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) catered to wealthy Mexicans rather than the poor, rural and working class. Although the country had been experiencing huge economic growth, millions of people had still been left behind. The 'Mexican Miracle' hadn’t reached everyone."

Seth Dixon's insight:

Few years are as powerful in the minds of Mexican identity as the year 1968. Like so many 99 percent invisible podcasts, this blends urban design, social geography, local history in a way that deepens our understanding of place. The built environment can be molded to project an image, and can be used to subvert that same message by the opposition.

Telling the stories of our food from field to fork.Episode Two: Peeling back the layers of nature's most powerful superfood.

Seth Dixon's insight:

This 5-minute video is a good introduction to garlic, it's production, environmental requirements, nutritional profile and diffusion. Historically, garlic was far more important than I ever imagined. The geography of food goes far beyond the kitchen and there are many more episodes in the "How Does it Grow?" series to show that.

"As the image above shows, The Times reports from all over the globe. We have journalists in more than 30 international news bureaus worldwide, and every day we publish news, feature stories, videos, slide shows and more from dozens of countries around the world. Our new 'Country of the Week' feature celebrates this abundance to help build students’ geography skills. A weekly interactive quiz will first introduce students to a country via a recent video or photograph, then ask them to find that place on a map. Next, the quiz will focus on the demographics and culture of the country. Finally, we’ll include links to recent reporting from that place in case they, or you, would like to go further.

In 'Why Geography Matters,' Harm de Blij wrote that geography is 'a superb antidote to isolationism and provincialism,' and argued that 'the American public is the geographically most illiterate society of consequence on the planet, at a time when United States power can affect countries and peoples around the world.'

This spatial illiteracy, geographers say, can leave citizens without a framework to think about foreign policy questions more substantively. 'The paucity of geographical knowledge means there is no check on misleading public representations about international matters,' said Alec Murphy, a professor of geography at the University of Oregon."

Roughly half the countries around the world experience low fertility rates, and some get pretty creative in how they encourage procreation.

Seth Dixon's insight:

While many countries have anti-natalist policies (policies to discourage more births), other countries with declining populations have pro-natalist policies in an attempt to increase fertility rates. While not an exhaustive list, this list gives a few more examples that teachers can use to show how countries in stage 4 of the demographic transition are dealing with declining fertility rates.

Seth Dixon's insight: While many countries have anti-natalist policies (policies to discourage more births), other countries with declining populations have pro-natalist policies in an attempt to increase fertility rates. While not an exhaustive list, this list gives a few more examples that teachers can use to show how countries in stage 4 of the demographic transition are dealing with declining fertility rates. Denmark Russia Japan Romania Singapore South Korea India (Parsis community) Italy Hong Kong Spain

While many countries have anti-natalist policies (policies to discourage more births), other countries with declining populations have pro-natalist policies in an attempt to increase fertility rates. While not an exhaustive list, this list gives a few more examples that teachers can use to show how countries in stage 4 of the demographic transition are dealing with declining fertility rates.

"The Seattle-based internet book seller Amazon just announced plans to open an enormous fulfillment center in the North Randall, Ohio. This is a big deal for the small community which has suffered greatly since the Randall Park Mall, once the largest in America, shut down due to retail sales moving online. Amazon is actually building its new warehouse on the same land where the mall once stood. The irony of this is lost on no one."

Seth Dixon's insight:

Questions to Ponder: Where is the geography in this new development? What economic forces are shaping and reshaping places?

"Bogotá closes its roads every Sunday. Now everyone wants to do it. The Ciclovía is the world’s most successful mass recreation event."

Seth Dixon's insight:

The amount of physical space in our urban environments that is exclusively dedicated to vehicular transportation is staggeringly high; there are efforts in many cities to return the streets to a multi-use space that it was historically. Bogotá is one of the leading cities in this movement and the Ciclovía is the envy of cyclists and runners around the world.

Questions to Ponder: What are the benefits and drawbacks to a weekly closure of the roads to vehicular traffic? Would this make a city a more desirable or less desirable place for you? What stakeholders would financially harmed by this and which groups might find this profitable?

"In [recent years], the South’s 150-year reverence for the Confederacy was shaken. Public officials responded to the national mourning and outcry by removing prominent public displays of its most recognizable symbol [the flag]. It became a moment of deep reflection for a region where the Confederate flag is viewed by many white Southerners as an emblem of their heritage and regional pride despite its association with slavery, Jim Crow and the violent resistance to the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s."

Nobody in Iraq is debating the pulling down of the statue of Saddam Hussein. It's about what his statue "represented" to a people. It's the same thing with the Confederate symbols. America has an “80%” minority population. (The 80% is a joke.) From the Native Americans to anybody else in that percentage, you won't hear any of them arguing to defend the Confederacy as their “history” and “heritage”. Get real!

"Are you interested in what’s happening in your global community? Explore economic, social, political, and environmental issues through the lens of geography. By exploring human influences and patterns, you can better understand the world around you, make predictions, and propose solutions to current issues. In this course, you will investigate geographic perspectives and analyze historical and current patterns of migration, population, political organization of space, agriculture, food production, land use, industrialization and economic development.

In addition, you will learn helpful strategies for answering multiple-choice questions and free response essay questions on the AP Human Geography test. Each of the seven modules in this course aligns with the concepts in the Advanced Placement* Human Geography course.

This course is specifically designed for students who are interested in learning more about the AP Human Geography course before enrolling, supplementary support and exam review, and for use in blended learning classrooms."

Life has long been fraught for a Muslim minority in mainly Buddhist Myanmar, but the recent “ethnic cleansing” has sent Rohingya fleeing en masse.

Seth Dixon's insight:

Many students have asked the question "Who are the Rohingya?" The Muslim minority group, concentrated near the Bangladeshi has a long history of marginalization. Its members lack full citizenship in Myanmar (Burma), and many in Myanmar deny that the Rohingya are a native ethnic group, claiming that they are recent Bengali immigrants. Now, fierce clashes between security forces and Rohingya militants left hundreds dead and entire villages torched to the ground. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled over the border into Bangladesh.

"China is the world’s biggest tea producer, selling many varieties of tea leaves such as green tea, black tea, oolong tea, white tea and yellow tea. Different regions are famous for growing different types of tea. Hangzhou is famous for producing a type of green tea called Longjing or the Dragon Well tea. Tea tastes also vary regionally. Drinkers in Beijing tend to prefer jasmine tea while in Shanghai prefer green tea. Processing raw tea leaves for consumption is a time and labor-intensive activity and still done by hand in many areas in China. The Chinese tea industry employs around 80 million people as farmers, pickers and sales people. Tea pickers tend to be seasonal workers who migrate from all parts of the country during harvest time. In 2016, China produced 2.43 million tons of tea."

Seth Dixon's insight:

Tea, the world's most popular beverage, doesn't just magically appear on kitchen tables--it's production and consumption is shaped by geographic forces, cultural preferences, and regional variations. These 21 images show the cultural, region, and environmental, economic, and agricultural context of tea.

This week has seen disasters and destruction on an unprecedented scale, and the HOT Community has activated to respond. Hurricane Irma is the largest Hurricane ever recorded, and has torn death and destruction through the Caribbean. Destruction on some islands is estimated at 95%, affecting the lives of 1.2 million so far, and on track to cause severe destruction across the entire Florida State, where mass evacuation is currently underway. Barbuda’s prime minister, Gaston Browne, described the damage as absolutely heart-wrenching. 'The island is literally under water and barely habitable,' Browne said. 'About 95% of properties are damaged, there is a serious threat of disease. Additionally, those already affected by Irma fear a second brutal battering by Hurricane Jose.'"

Seth Dixon's insight:

Want to see geographic knowledge and geospatial skills in action? Crowd-sourced mapping is increasingly an important resource during an emergency. Poorer places are often not as well mapped out by the commercial cartographic organizations and these are oftentimes the places that are most vulnerable to natural disasters. Relief agencies depend on mapping platforms to handle the logistics of administering aid and assessing the extent of the damage and rely on these crowd-sourced data sets. My students and I join OpenStreetMap (OSM) projects, especially when there is a major humanitarian need...it's a great way to make service learning and geospatial technologies come together. The projects that are marked urgent by the Red Cross are all in Haiti right now. Here are is a video playlist that explains the project and how you can help if you are new to OpenStreetMap (OSM).

Want to see geographic knowledge and geospatial skills in action? Crowd-sourced mapping is increasingly an important resource during an emergency. Poorer places are often not as well mapped out by the commercial cartographic organizations and these are oftentimes the places that are most vulnerable to natural disasters. Relief agencies depend on mapping platforms to handle the logistics of administering aid and assessing the extent of the damage and rely on these crowd-sourced data sets. My students and I join OpenStreetMap (OSM) projects, especially when there is a major humanitarian need...it's a great way to make service learning and geospatial technologies come together. The projects that are marked urgent by the Red Cross are all in Haiti right now. Here are is a video playlist that explains the project and how you can help if you are new to OpenStreetMap (OSM).

"Tomales Bay lies about 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of San Francisco, along the edges of two tectonic plates that are grinding past each other. The boundary between them is the San Andreas Fault, the famous rift that partitions California for hundreds of miles. To the west of the Bay is the Pacific plate; to the east is the North American plate. The rock on the western shore of the Bay is granite, an igneous rock that formed underground when molten material slowly cooled over time. On the opposite shore, the land is a mix of several types of marine sedimentary rocks. In Assembling California, John McPhee calls that side “a boneyard of exotica,” a mixture of rock of 'such widespread provenance that it is quite literally a collection from the entire Pacific basin, or even half of the surface of the planet.'"

"One of my stores, we had 300 employees; 140 of them were displaced by the flooding. So how do you put your store back together quickly? We asked for volunteers in the rest of the company. We brought over 2,000 partners from Austin, San Antonio, the Rio Grande Valley. They hopped into cars and they just drove to Houston. They said, we're here to help. For 18 hours a day, they’re going to help us restock and then they'll go sleep on the couch at somebody's house."

Seth Dixon's insight:

Natural disasters complicate the logistics that make our modern economy run. We take these flows for granted--until they are disrupted. This article is a excellent view into how to operate when disaster strikes.

Natural disasters complicate the logistics that make our modern economy run. We take these flows for granted--until they are disrupted. This article is a excellent view into how to operate when disaster strikes.

"Students need to know human geography; they need to understand the relationships that exist between cultures."

Seth Dixon's insight:

You might have seen this article on PBS's Teacher's Lounge, but here is a link to the original (and a good reason to give a shout-out to #worldgeochat on Twitter Tuesday nights at 9pm EST). This might be seen as another example of me preaching to the choir, but I hope that this will arm you with resources to use in discussions with administrators and colleagues in the fight against geographic ignorance. This is a great article to put into my new tag of article that discuss why geography matters.

Seth Dixon's insight: Houston's development boom and reduction of wetlands leave region prone to more severe flooding. Here is a great map of the change in impervious surfaces in the region from 1940 to 2017--when you combine that with record-breaking rainfall the results are catastrophic. But a local understanding of place is critical and this viral post--Things non-Houstonians Need to Understand--is pretty good.

How do we solve the problem of the suburbs? Urbanist Jeff Speck shows how we can free ourselves from dependence on the car -- which he calls "a gas-belching, time-wasting, life-threatening prosthetic device" -- by making our cities more walkable and more pleasant for more people.

A really interesting talk about the benefits of walkable cities. Examples are American but excellent ideas regarding environmental, health and peripheral benefits that could be applied here in Australia.

In the 1860s and 70s, photographer Timothy O'Sullivan created some of the best-known images in American History. After covering the U.S. Civil War, (many of his photos appear in this earlier series), O'Sullivan joined a number of expeditions organized by the federal government to help document the new frontiers in the American West. The teams were composed of soldiers, scientists, artists, and photographers, and tasked with discovering the best ways to take advantage of the region's untapped natural resources. O'Sullivan brought an amazing eye and work ethic, composing photographs that evoked the vastness of the West. He also documented the Native American population as well as the pioneers who were already altering the landscape. Above all, O'Sullivan captured -- for the first time on film -- the natural beauty of the American West in a way that would later influence Ansel Adams and thousands more photographers to come.

The protests in Charlottesville, VA in August 2017 were all about Confederate statues, and they were never about monuments all at the same time. This video from HBO’s Vice news has some f-bombs, but frankly, that isn’t the most disturbing content of this unflinching look into the Alt-Right/White nationalist protests and the subsequent counter-protests. Despite the graphic display of violence, overt racism, and coarse language, I find the video incredibly illuminating and insightful. It is hard to sanitize and sugar-coat the facts and still give an accurate portrayal of these events.

As I said, it’s about the statues, but not truly. At stake is the control over public space and the normative messages within the cultural landscape. Who decides what history gets etched into our public squares? What are the meanings within this landscape? Even 20 years ago, the thought of marshalling political power in Southern cities and states to remove Confederate statues was unthinkable what these symbols meant is different then what they were mean today. Modern southern politicians are seeing that supporting them vigorously is the new lost cause. Could we have a cultural landscape that has no public memorials to the Confederacy in 25 years? What would that say about the society that restructured the landscape? The cultural landscape isn’t just a reflection of society; it also shows political, ethnic, cultural and economic struggles to as “who were are” and what our communal values are continually get remade.

The symbols of the Confederacy have long been venerated by some as symbols of southern heritage, but implicitly a white heritage. Today, many are seeking to create public spaces that foster an sense of inclusion of African Americans into that definition of “who we are” in the public places. In May 2017, New Orleans removed some of their Confederate statues, and Mayor Mitch Landrieu gave a powerful speech that contextualizes (one perspective on the) historical meanings embedded in these statues. I find his perspective to be the most appropriate for a South that respects all of its citizens and honors its past.

FURTHER READING: Geographer Jonathan Leib gives a fantastic analysis of the competing politics of the juxtaposition of Confederate statues and Arthur Ashe in Richmond, VA. Some geographers (Derek Alderman and Joshua Inwood) in an op-ed argue that this is the time for the Trump administration to explicitly repudiate white nationalism.

Seth Dixon's insight:

I added some links to this old article to include a fifth example, that of Charlottesville, VA.

This article talks about the cultural significance behind certain monuments, among those being the Confederate monuments in Charlottesville, VA. It provides an interesting context for discussion of the alt right.

Technological innovation and automation are transforming entire industries. As self-driving trucks hit the road, what could possibly go wrong?

Seth Dixon's insight:

What jobs can be automated? This is a question I ask all of my students because job disruption is something that every future wage earner should consider as they plan out their careers. Would you be outsource-able? Could technology render your skill set unnecessary in the future? What are the impacts of creative destruction on the economic, cultural, and political characteristics of a place? How would those changes impact regions?

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